A few more people who “deserve a vote” on gun control

During his State of the Union address, President Obama chanted the names of people he thinks “deserve a vote” on gun control. Quite a few names were omitted, particularly if they weren’t useful to the gun control effort.

How about Amanda Collins? Does she “deserve a vote” to preserve her Second Amendment rights? She’s a rape survivor – specifically, one of those campus rapes that liberal cave troll Bob Beckel thinks are largely “mythical” – who gave an interview to NRA News, as related by Katie Pavlich of Townhall.com:

While in college in 2007, she was raped 50 feet away from the campus police department office at the University of Nevada-Reno and was lucky to get out alive. Her attacker was James Biela, a serial rapist who raped two other women and murdered another. He attacked her at gun point in a gun free zone. At the time of the attack, Collins was in possession of a concealed weapons permit but was not in possession of her firearm due to university policies prohibiting carrying concealed weapons on campus. She was also a second degree blackbelt at the time and walked to the parking garage with a large group of people.

That takes care of just about every liberal myth and fetish pertaining to gun control and self defense. Collins is understandably adamant about the right of women to choose firearms for effective protection:

“If I had been carrying that night, two other rapes would have been prevented and a young life would have been saved,” Collins said. “All of these are just sentiments that give a false sense of security. In my experience I know that the university that I attended, the University of Nevada-Reno, they didn’t didn’t have any call boxes the night I was attacked. They afterwards installed them but I can tell you that a call box above my head while I was straddled on the parking garage floor being brutally raped wouldn’t have helped me one bit. The safe zone? I was in a safe zone and my attacker didn’t care.”

Does President Obama agree that Evan Todd should get a vote on gun control, too? He’s a survivor of the Columbine shooting. He just sent a lengthy open letter to the President, tackling just about every gun-control idea Democrats have put on the table. The letter is reprinted in full at The Blaze. Here are a few choice excerpts:

Ban on Military-Style Assault Weapons

The evidence is very clear pertaining to the inadequacies of the assault weapons ban. It had little to no effect when it was in place from 1994 until 2004. It was during this time that I personally witnessed two fellow students murder twelve of my classmates and one teacher. The assault weapons ban did not deter these two murderers, nor did the other thirty-something laws that they broke.

10-Round Limit for Magazines

Virginia Tech was the site of the deadliest school shooting in U.S. history. Seung-Hui Cho used two of the smallest caliber hand guns manufactured and a handful of ten round magazines. There are no substantial facts that prove that limited magazines would make any difference at all.
Second, this is just another law that endangers law-abiding citizens. I’ve heard you ask, “why does someone need 30 bullets to kill a deer?”

Let me ask you this: Why would you prefer criminals to have the ability to out-gun law-abiding citizens? Under this policy, criminals will still have their 30-round magazines, but the average American will not. Whose side are you on?

Lastly, when did they government get into the business of regulating “needs?” This is yet another example of government overreaching and straying from its intended purpose.

Selling to Criminals

Mr. President, these are your words: “And finally, Congress needs to help, rather than hinder, law enforcement as it does its job. We should get tougher on people who buy guns with the express purpose of turning around and selling them to criminals. And we should severely punish anybody who helps them do this.”

Why don’t we start with Eric Holder and thoroughly investigate the Fast and Furious program?

Furthermore, the vast majority of these mass murderers bought their weapons legally and jumped through all the hoops — because they were determined to murder. Adding more hoops and red tape will not stop these types of people. It doesn’t now — so what makes you think it will in the future? Criminals who cannot buy guns legally just resort to the black market.

Criminals and murderers will always find a way.

Todd also notes that the kind of universal background check system Obama advocates, besides having ominous implications for eventual universal gun registration and confiscation, is a bureaucracy that our insolvent government cannot afford. If, as Obama currently insists, a 3 percent spending cut would shut down half of America, how can we even consider taking on such new spending commitments? How many firefighters would we have to fire, to scrounge up the money for that universal background check system?

Human props are deployed in political arguments for the purpose of hijacking their moral legitimacy: how can you oppose gun control proposals if a bunch of children are lined up on stage behind the speaker? Well, both of these people have every bit as much moral legitimacy as anyone enlisted by the gun control lobby. And they make well-reasoned arguments to boot.